The exact location and nature of the Temple of Osiris at Abydos have been the subjects
of enduring debate in Egyptology. Modest cultic buildings excavated more than a
century ago by W. M. F. Petrie in the ancient town site have been interpreted by some scholars as including the temple of the god proper, while others have disagreed, arguing
that the main temple had yet to be identified at the site.

Institute of Fine Arts excavations, supervised by Michelle Marlar, IFA
PhD, now Adjunct Professor, University of Alabama, Huntsville, have revealed the remains of two superimposed architectural phases of a major temple building, very possibly
the main temple of Osiris at Abydos. The much denuded later phase belongs to Egypt’s last native dynasty, the 30th, dating to the 4th Century BCE.
The earlier probably belongs to the New Kingdom, and a number of inscriptions of
18th Dynasty kings have been found on decorated blocks reused in the later phase that
probably originated in the earlier, suggesting it may have been constructed during that
period. A significant number of stone blocks decorated with painted relief, as well as
decorated and inscribed architectural elements, and literally thousands of fragments of
relief, inscriptions, and sculpture, have been recovered in the excavations. Although the
evidence is fragmentary, it reveals much about the original decorative program of the
temple, in both its earlier and later phases.

Future work will result in new discoveries about one of Egypt’s most important temples
and the ritual focus of ancient Abydos.